Stranded (5 page)

“Anyway, I didn’t have a watch to know what time it was,” Abilene went on, “so I was just standing there trying to decide whether to wait for a while, when an SUV screeched up. A little girl jumped out with a cat wrapped in a blanket, and her mother jumped out right behind her. And both of them were frantic when they found the vet wasn’t there, because the cat was unconscious.”

“Oh no—”

“They’d had some old Christmas lights out and were testing them. The cat chewed on the electrical cord and got shocked.”

“And it was still alive?” Kelli said. “That’s a wonder.”

“I didn’t think it was alive. It was
limp
. Then I remembered seeing on TV about how this fireman gave CPR to an unconscious cat he’d pulled out of a burning building.”

“You gave CPR to a cat?” Kelli asked.

“I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it, but I figured I couldn’t hurt the poor thing. It wasn’t breathing at all. So I tried to remember what I’d seen on TV, and I closed the cat’s mouth and put my mouth over its face and breathed into its nose. It’s different than how you do CPR on a person,” she added.

“A whole lot different,” Kelli said, which I had to echo. Then Kelli added thoughtfully, “But I guess I could do it if I had to. If it were my Sandra Day . . .”

Now it was my turn to be astonished. “You named your cat for a former Supreme Court judge?”

Kelli smiled self-consciously. “Not many people make the connection. It’s kind of a lawyer thing.”

I nodded toward Koop, who was busily kneading Kelli’s lap. “He hates smokers. His name’s Koop.”

Kelli looked blank for a moment, then awareness lit up her face with another smile. “After the surgeon general who was such a fanatic against smoking!”

“Not many people make that connection either.”

It’s odd how bonds form between people. You wouldn’t think cat names would do it. But we smiled at each other, and I felt a definite link here. It didn’t prove Kelli Keifer wasn’t a murderer, but it was going to take more than Ben’s “everyone knows she did it” to make me think she was.

I turned back to Abilene. “So what happened with the cat?”

“After a little while it started breathing on its own.”

Kelli clapped. “Hey, that’s awesome!”

“I was really surprised when it worked,” Abilene admitted. “And then the vet drove up, and the woman told him what I’d done. So he asked if I’d like to go inside and wash out my mouth—”

“Good idea!” Kelli said, and we all laughed. I was still trying to decide if I could do what Abilene had done.

“So I went in and washed out my mouth, and then I watched while the vet checked the cat to see if it was going to be okay. Its name is Mittens. The woman had a camera with her and took a picture of the little girl and me and Mittens all together.”

“Do you know who these people were?” Kelli asked.

Abilene shook her head, and I had to smile. She knew the cat’s name but not the people’s. Or why the woman had a camera with her. Typical Abilene. “After they left, the veterinarian said I’d done . . . good.”

Abilene is a modest person, not given to bragging. I guessed she was being modest now about what the vet had said.

“And then he offered me the job as his assistant.”

“Dr. Sugarman will be a great guy to work for. I always take Sandra Day to him. This is great!”

I echoed the thought. A job involving animals would be a perfect job for Abilene.

“Everyone likes Dr. Sugarman,” Kelli added. “He does everything from teach Sunday school at a church to run a 4-H club for the kids.”

A Christian, an animal lover, and good with kids. I right away wanted to know if he was married, but Abilene jumped in before I could ask. “I told him I couldn’t take a job because we were just passing through, but . . . ?” She looked at me questioningly.

“I don’t think we’re just passing through.”

“Then maybe I’ll go talk to him again about the job. He said he’d train me and teach me whatever I need to know.”

She spoke in an offhand way, but I could see she was bubbling with eagerness. She clapped a hand to the side of her face. “Oh, but I forgot all about the plastic wrap!”

And, temporarily, the toothache too, apparently. “I think we’ll survive without it,” I assured her. Probably neither Abilene nor Kelli could, but I could well remember back to the days when we did without plastic wrap because there was no such thing.

I envisioned Dr. Sugarman as young and handsome, though I doubted that mattered to Abilene. The chance to work with animals was what was important to her. And there was that big barrier to a romantic relationship for Abilene anyway, a barrier in the form of brutal, vindictive Boone Morrison, who was still, unfortunately, her legal husband.

Kelli jumped up. “Okay! Good. Do you want to go over to the house now or wait until tomorrow?” She answered her own question. “Actually, tomorrow would be better. Uncle Hiram had the place modernized with a heat pump a few years ago, and I have the heat on to keep the pipes from freezing, but it’s down really low. I’ll go over now and turn it up, so the house will be warm tomorrow. Okay?”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Kelli offered to come pick us up, but I said we could walk, so she drew a map of streets and suggested we meet at the house at ten o’clock the following day. She said it would be quite a walk, but I said we didn’t mind.

“But we don’t want you taking time off from work just for this. Ben Simpson mentioned you’re a lawyer, and I know how busy lawyers are. We can come earlier or later.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t also mention that I’m not exactly overwhelmed with business.” Actually Ben had pointed that out, but I didn’t mention it now. “I’m still working on Uncle Hiram’s estate, and I’m handling a couple of real estate things, but I let my receptionist go a few weeks ago.” She gave us a little wave as she went out the door. “See you tomorrow.”

Nick closed and locked the gate when he left for the night, and I felt comfortable and secure behind the wooden fence. I fixed pork chops and microwave-baked potatoes for dinner, and Abilene added a salad. Koop snuggled up at my feet when we all went to bed, me in the bed up over the driver and passenger’s seats, Abilene on the sofa. I’d offered numerous times to switch with her because she’s so much taller than I am, but she always insisted the sofa was fine.

I crossed my hands behind my head on the pillow and reflected on the day. It had been stressful, no doubt about it, and I knew we might be stranded here for who-knew-how-long. But the Lord, working in his usual mysterious ways, was looking after us. A dream job for Abilene. A house to live in.

Thank you, Lord.

And an intriguing, unsolved murder lurking in the wings . . .

5

Kelli’s Bronco was already parked in the driveway when we arrived, me huffing from the climb, because the house was well up on a steep hillside on the east side of town. This had no doubt been a lone-wolf, power position overlooking all of Hello at one time, and the view of town below and mountains beyond was still spectacular, but homes of more recent vintage rose on the hillside above the house now.

The house looked like a late Victorian, maybe built in the 1890s or early 1900s, I guessed, although it had probably been modified since originally built. We’d seen other Victorians on our climb up here, but this one, though not as well-kept as some, showed evidence of past glory. A steep roofline topped the three stories, with odd angles and juttings here and there to accommodate dormer windows and other projections. A round tower rose from each front corner of the house, which struck me as unusual. Perhaps built that way because other houses constructed locally in that time period had only one tower, and whichever McLeod ancestor had built the house felt the need to proclaim his superiority with two?

The tower on the right was open on the third floor, making it a circular balcony with a fancy railing below a peaked roof rising to a weather vane of a trotting horse. The tower on the left had a semicircle of tall, narrow windows with arched tops and a graceful roof that matched the opposite tower. When we peered through the tall hedge surrounding the front yard, I saw that a brick walkway outlined each tower.

Subtracting from the elegance of the tower on the left was a chunk of unpainted plywood covering one of the windows. A pillared porch loaded with gingerbread trim ran across the front of the house between the towers. Most of the house was painted a dreary mold-green, but an impressive brick chimney rose beyond the right tower. An addition appeared to have been built on the back side of the house at some time, a flat-roofed oblong unfortunately tacked on with no regard for architecture or style.

I felt, as freeloading tenants, perhaps we should go around to some servants’ entrance, but Kelli had been watching for us and swung the front door open.

“A rather grand old gal, isn’t she?” She motioned us up the front steps. “Too bad it has this pall of doom hanging over it. Like a curse or infectious disease, and anyone who gets too close might catch it.”

“People will get over whatever prejudice they have against the house because of the circumstances. It’s a beautiful old place.”

“It needs some work, but it is beautiful, isn’t it? And if you live here and don’t get murdered, maybe the death-taint will be defused.”

If we didn’t get murdered?
Not a reassuring thought. But free is free, I philosophized. Can’t be fussy about details.

Apparently realizing how what she’d just said sounded, Kelli smiled ruefully. “That didn’t come out quite right, did it? But I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe here.”

“You didn’t live here with your uncle?” I asked as Kelli shut the door behind us. The heat pump had brought the interior temperature to a comfortable warmth.

“No. I stayed here for a short time, but it wasn’t working out. Now I have a little log cottage over on the other side of town.”

The front door, with a heavy oval window of etched glass, opened onto a large, hardwood-floored foyer centered with a broad stairway leading upward. An archway opened to a living room, or perhaps it was called a parlor at one time, on the right. A door to the left was closed. I looked at it curiously. There’s something magnetic about a closed door, at least for someone as curious as I am. I could almost feel, as my good friend Magnolia back in Missouri would say, vibes coming off the room. Was that where Hiram had been murdered?

Kelli ignored the closed door and led us into the living room, brushing aside a spider web draped catty-corner across the archway.

“Living in the same house wasn’t working out because . . . ?” Okay, it was a nosy question. But little old ladies can often get away with nosiness, and I’m willing to take advantage of any perks available to LOLs.

“The rumors are rampant, of course. One is that Uncle Hiram didn’t want me living in the house with him because he was afraid I’d poison him. Another is that I didn’t want to live here because it would cramp my lifestyle. I’m from the Los Angeles area. Which to the local imagination could mean anything from nude dancing on tabletops to throwing cocaine parties with my friends from the Hollywood Mob. It’s all so outrageous that it would be funny, except . . .” She shook her head and blinked, and I guessed the town’s suspicions hurt her more than she wanted to let on.

“And the real reason you didn’t want to live in the same house was . . . ?”

“A big reason was that Uncle Hiram didn’t like cats, and I have my Sandra Day. I didn’t care for his heavy smoking, and we also had some . . . philosophical differences.” An intriguing comment, I thought, but she moved on without elaborating. “I also prefer something a little more cozy than this.”

She waved toward the distant ceiling, the molding and elaborate crystal chandelier liberally draped with more spider webs. The enormous fireplace had been covered over at some time and was now just a blank brick wall beneath an elaborately carved mantel. The mantel would still be a nice place to hang a child’s stocking at Christmas, and I felt an unexpected wave of nostalgia about a fireplace mantel hung with stockings back in my son Colin’s childhood. Sometimes it’s hard to believe how old Colin would be now if he hadn’t disappeared in a ferry accident while on a military peacekeeping assignment in Korea so long ago.